Chained to One Another
Armenians and Turks in the Shadow of Genocide
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
The murder of 1.5 million Armenians by the Young Turk government in the late Ottoman Empire casts long shadow. This was one of the first genocides of the 20th century. Since then, Armenians and Turks have remained locked in confrontation. In spite of the intransigence and estrangement on both sides, the Armenians with their trauma and the Turks with their fear of acknowledging the truth are chained to one another in an almost pathological way. In order to move forward in the Armenian question, dialogue should take the place of confrontation. It would be prudent to put the static, symbolic conflict surrounding the term “genocide” on the back burner.
(Osteuropa 7-10/2015, pp. 113–128)